I think men treating women like sex objects happened long before anyone said “All men are rapists” seriously. How does anyone address the historical (and current) context of subjugation and oppression women face under men (who do hold a large majority of positions of power)? I think reducing the conversation to what you said is, frankly, the tactic of the right, and it’s really easy to give up on learning that context if one takes a victim complex, like when anyone attacks white people or Christians or straight people or cis people or cops, and ignore everything related to why those groups might have that hate towards them.
How can you address that context if you say “Not all men” and then do nothing to address the original critiques in the first place? If you pretend like the conversation starts and stops at the logical disproving of “All men are rapists,” then will you simply ignore that marital rape exists? Will you ignore that women do have higher rates of being sexually assaulted and that we make it hard to do anything about those assaults?
I, sadly, think of “All men are rapists” as a defensive mantra. That we, as a society, have to teach girls and women to fear men because we failed at multiple other points. It isn’t true, and it probably isn’t a great attitude to take, but I don’t know that I can fault anyone for having that view.
False dichotomies and flat truisms don’t start conversations tho, they end them. Yes, men have been treating women like sex objects since forever, but men have also NOT been treating women like sex objects - it depends on which men you’re talking about. And that sentiment does NOT equal simply ignoring that marital rape exists. The world doesn’t consist solely of extremes.
Think if you said getting AIDS was something gay men did. Statistically pretty true - the vast majority of AIDS cases among men are gay man - but do you think that would be a productive way to approach the subject?
I think men treating women like sex objects happened long before anyone said “All men are rapists” seriously. How does anyone address the historical (and current) context of subjugation and oppression women face under men (who do hold a large majority of positions of power)? I think reducing the conversation to what you said is, frankly, the tactic of the right, and it’s really easy to give up on learning that context if one takes a victim complex, like when anyone attacks white people or Christians or straight people or cis people or cops, and ignore everything related to why those groups might have that hate towards them.
How can you address that context if you say “Not all men” and then do nothing to address the original critiques in the first place? If you pretend like the conversation starts and stops at the logical disproving of “All men are rapists,” then will you simply ignore that marital rape exists? Will you ignore that women do have higher rates of being sexually assaulted and that we make it hard to do anything about those assaults?
I, sadly, think of “All men are rapists” as a defensive mantra. That we, as a society, have to teach girls and women to fear men because we failed at multiple other points. It isn’t true, and it probably isn’t a great attitude to take, but I don’t know that I can fault anyone for having that view.
False dichotomies and flat truisms don’t start conversations tho, they end them. Yes, men have been treating women like sex objects since forever, but men have also NOT been treating women like sex objects - it depends on which men you’re talking about. And that sentiment does NOT equal simply ignoring that marital rape exists. The world doesn’t consist solely of extremes.
Think if you said getting AIDS was something gay men did. Statistically pretty true - the vast majority of AIDS cases among men are gay man - but do you think that would be a productive way to approach the subject?